Posted by Buck "When your father introduced him to me, he looked everywhere else but at me, but when he left the room Kerouac's eyes were crawling all over me." "Reallllllly?" I replied, 30 years later. "Yes. He gave me the creeps. He didn't really like to socialize with anyone in the neighborhood. Even Betty (our totally hot neighbor who drove a black, T-bird convertible) offered him a ride home once and he turned her down. He was pretty much the town drunk by then. He didn't drive . . . just pulled his beer and groceries home in a little red wagon. Head down, never acknowledging anyone. It was just him and his mother and a few cats." "Why do you think he let Dad bring him in for a drink?" "Probably the alcohol. Plus, your father was very interested in Kerouac's career, and probably flattered him. But judging from the flop-sweat, the shifty eyes and nervous movements, I'd say he was on a whole buncha other stuff besides the booze." "Yeah, probably," I said. "Speed." "Could be. I don't know if I'll ever read any of his books because he didn't seem to be able to get it together in life, so I'm skeptical about what he would pass on in his writing." Mom was the opposite of a beatnik. (What is the opposite of a beatnik?) I read 'On the Road,' but not until the 90's. Oddly, it resembled the travelogue of a hitchhiking trip I took to New Mexico in the early 70's. I took my sister along, and she fell in love with a Mexican boy (Kerouac fell in love with a Mexican boy too, but in the book, he said it was a girl. "How do you know that?" "I don't. Just a guess." "You're getting the Mexican girl mixed up with Neal Cassidy." "Oh, sorry.") "They were odd," Mom said. "The neighborhood talked. Alan Ginsberg would come out in the middle of winter with a jalaba and sandals. In the Winter!" "I s'pose that's a bit odd, but when you're consuming copious amounts of narcotics and booze, a little cold weather can serve as a stimulant. What was Ginsberg like?" "I don't know. Never met him. But he came out quite a bit." "He was trying to get into Kerouac's pants, just like Gore Vidal." "Why does everything have to be so 'gay' for you? You're always suspecting people. Do you believe anyone in the world is 100% straight." "Not Jack Kerouac." "So what?" "Never mind so what. So Ma...why do you think Kerouac agreed to come over for a drink. Do you think it was Dad's muscular biceps?" "That's enough. He was at the end of his rope. He was going downhill fast. He was 86'd from every bar on Main Street. It's too bad your father (a psychologist) wasn't closer to him . . ." (Stifled chuckle) ". . . maybe he'd have been able to help him out." Kerouac left Northport a few years later. He loved his place on Judy Ann Court. He would get drunk, go out naked into his back yard and count his trees. He had a lot of trees back there. I was a little afraid of him when I had to cut through his yard to visit Doug, my friend who lived to the rear of Kerouac's little pastel ranch house. Turned out, though, that Doug was the real weirdo. He killed our dog with a rock after I complained that he was shooting his own dog with a bb gun. I never saw him again. I couldn't prove he murdered our German Shepard. Twenty-five years later, 1987, I'm sitting in my office in San Francisco and I pick up the Chronicle. A little AP wire item mentioned that a dog catcher in Florida had been arrested for killing hundreds of cats and dogs with his service revolver. He got a slap on the wrist. I knew exactly who it was. Same name. Same age. Eerie. Jack Kerouac loved his cats. The family refused to vacate the house on Judy Ann Court until the last of the three returned home from an extended neighborhood tour. But, finally, they were gone. Down to Sarasota, we heard. I caught him on TV program and he was totally ripped. Barely coherent. Then he was dead. I think it helps to be dead sooner rather than later if you really want to have a long career in literature.
on 5/18/2005, 2:35 pm
143.58.40.11
I stuck the names "Kerouac" and "Judy Ann" into Google and came up with this site and realized I remembered those softball games at Ocean Avenue school. Judy Ann was the street we lived on back in the 60's and Kerouac was our wacky, new neighbor. He came over for a drink one Christmas.
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